itself in the process: a consistent theme in Pinters
The
Annual visit to
Florence
in February
The study visit to Florence by the combined
Art History and Photography students was an
extremely memorable one that was enjoyed
immensely by both staff and students alike.
The purpose of the visit was to assist students
in the preparation for their exams. Florences
beauty is almost indescribable, with every
street you turn down a perfect picture-
postcard image, giving the Photography
students, who were looked after by Gerard
Hastings, hundreds of brilliant photo
opportunities for their coursework themes
of Time and Motion and Passion and
Obsession. The Art History students were
able to experience firsthand the works we
had been studying, including Botticellis
paintings in the Uffizi. In particular, the famous
Birth of Venus proved to be more powerful
than any photographic reproduction, while
students commented on how Michelangelos
David was much taller and more powerful
than they had anticipated and it was hard to
comprehend how a huge piece of marble
could be embody such a sense of character
and sensitivity. Brunelleschis monumental
Duomo, which rises above the citys terracotta-
tiled rooftops, acts as a magnificent
centrepiece to the city and we were
fortunate enough to be staying right next
to it and to see it magically lit up on our first
night. The following morning as we made
our way up the 463 incredibly claustrophobic
steps a few faces turned a slightly odd shade
of green, but the view from the Duomo is
breathtaking and resulted in a rare moment
of silence from the assembled students.
In the next few days we were able to visit
all the key sites for the Art History A2 syllabus,
such as the Bargello, the Uffizi, the
Accademia, Or San Michele and the
beautiful San Marco monastery. It was
noticeable how much the students enjoyed
experiencing works in situ, where their
geographical and cultural context could
more easily be understood. As ever, the
highlight was our visit to the Brancacci
chapel frescoes, on the afternoon of an
extraordinary tropical rainstorm.
P h o t o g r a p h s b y J o h n C a me r o n
There was also time for the group to wander
around and visit the markets and eat ice
cream, enjoy the language and wider culture
of the city (and even for one lucky student to
meet her potential future husband, in a scene
straight out of A Room With A View, with
Petrouchka and me cast in the roles of Miss
Lavish and the Reverend Beebe respectively!)
John Cameron
Hubble's Deepest View of Universe Unveils Never-Before-Seen
Galaxies
Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory and
the University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens
(UCO/Lick Observatory and Leiden University), and the
HUDF09 Team
Physics trip to
ula
Greenwich
eb
N wl
e ed
Ey
Observatory
t's
Ca
Th
On 4 March, 21 A2 Physics students
attended a Study Day: Astronomy for
Astrophysicists at the Royal Observatory in
Greenwich. The visit gave students a
context to their A level studies in Astronomy
and showed an inspiring insight into the
work of astronomers.
In the first session in the Planetarium, we
explored the night sky and saw some
stunning images of nebulae taken by the
Hubble space telescope. We also met an
observational cosmologist who provided
some evidence of black holes. Apparently,
black holes arent necessarily black and if
you were to get close enough to the event
horizon, the difference in gravity between
your feet and head would stretch you into a
piece of spaghetti. At least, I think thats
what she said!
A question and answer session followed
with the Public Astronomer, who was
impressively unfazed by the multitude of
questions thrown at him; most notably from
Leo Whitehead who had obviously given
the universe some thought. Alistair Spreyer
wanted to know the practicalities of
emigrating to Mars (possible, but very
expensive) and the question of intelligent
extra-terrestrial life was raised by a couple
of students (always producing a non-
committal response).
After a spot of lunch, we learnt about
telescope optics and how a parabolic
reflector gives better images than a series
of lenses. The day was rounded off by a
photo session on the Greenwich meridian
line, where east meets west.
Antony Bray
Caretaker
drama. Sporadically, Pryce mustered an accent
almost suiting the contours of his ill-fitting smoking
jacket: conveying perfectly the upwardly-mobile
review fantasies of this down-and-out and creating a
It proved perfect timing to see The Caretaker in parallel with Mick who has mastered the vocabulary
early March for the play had just been completed of interior decoration but, judging by the state of
by GCSE groups and it is always a pleasure for the room, not yet its practice. Pryce fully inhabited
students who have mastered a play over several the role, and wrung from it all its humour and
weeks of study to see it unfold in front of them in cumulative poignancy. As striking as his accents
Hubble's View of a Grand Star-Forming Region NGC 6302 or the Bug Nebula.
was the veritable lexicon of hand gestures Pryce
Credit: NASA, ESA, F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
real time on the stage. Pleasingly, the event also
O'Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide attracted Theatre Studies students and A2 English deployed, many of which indicated that he might
Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee
students, some of whom studied this play a couple have taken more than a peek into the asylums
of years ago and all of whom had more recently Aston describes in his spell-binding and agonising
Jonathan Pryce in Pinters The Caretaker
been exploring a later work by Pinter, Betrayal. Photo courtesy of the Trafalgar Studios monologue. The fragility of Aston (whose constant
fiddling with electric implements is later revealed
Betrayal is a theme also found in The Caretaker:
Aston ended up in an asylum as a consequence of papers signed as a reworking of his experiences of electric-shock therapy) and
Hubble Herita
, and The ge Te by his mother (and uncontested by his brother, Mick) and he first Micks penchant for violence of verbal and physical kinds were
HEIC am
SA , ( ST well-conveyed and the final sequence achieved a tableau effect with
A, E Sc befriends and then, albeit not without provocation, ousts the
AS I/A Davies reduced slowly to silence, Aston with his back to him and
it: N UR treacherous tramp Davies from the house the brothers share.
C
red A)
A Mick looking on. Read one way, the status quo had been restored
This performance of The Caretaker, however, was much more than and Mick could once more rule the roost; read another, the
ck
no just an aid to revision: though I am wary of using words like
brothers were in cahoots: they have performed this power game
definitive, this was consummate theatre. Jonathan Pryce caught
g before and will do so again. Those who went were still debating
every nuance of the racially-indeterminate Mac Davies as his
m
the play the following day: a sign of this productions power.
en
accent slipped and slid across the extremities of the British Isles,
t:
Richard Martin
R.
replicating his life on the road and querying the stability of identity
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Could we
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to
Is there
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Kingston Rugby academy which, although Watson, who captained the side extremely
Sport it resulted in a 4-point loss, gained them well. In the annual seven-a-side tournament
second place in the final league table. The the team reached the semi-finals, but lost
report
there?
final match of the season was against a to Kingston again.
The school sports teams had a successful very strong Epsom College XV. This was by The football team also had a good second
second term. In particular, the rugby 1st XV far the best performance this winter and a half of the season, recording wins over
played exceptionally well this term and game full of fast-flowing, entertaining rugby. Reigate Grammar School, Colfes and St.
produced some outstanding performances. The game was lost by a small margin but it Dunstans. Well done to all the boys who
Comprehensive wins over all the teams in was a really satisfying way to end the contributed to these teams and we hope to
the London Colleges Rugby League were season. Exceptional performances that day be even more successful next year.
followed by an excellent match against came from Alex Allen, Tom Hill and James
Simon Horner
All Hubble telescope images on this page appear on the website, http://hubblesite.org/gallery/
CIFE
at the House of Lords
At MPW we are justifiably proud of our
students achievements.
So imagine how exciting it was to attend
the CIFE Afternoon Tea and Awards
Ceremony at the House of Lords on a
balmy afternoon at the end of March,
when two MPW students were awarded
prizes for their hard work and enterprise.
Jessye Bloomfield joined MPW in
September 2008 and gained four high
grade As at AS in Photography, History of
Art, Art and Theatre Studies. She plans to
take up one of her offers to read History of
Art either at UCL or at the Courtauld in
September 2010.
Alex Healy-Evans won a CIFE Award for
his excellent GCSE results. He joined MPW
in September 2008 for a one-year GCSE
course and his results of 7A*s and 1A are
testament to his ability, commitment and
enthusiasm. Alex is currently studying
Geography, Maths, History and Economics
at A level and has his sights set firmly on
an Oxbridge application.
We warmly congratulate them both.
Virtual Business
In Business Studies this Spring Term the A2
students were competing against each
other in a virtual business world, through
using a computer simulation called
Marketplace. The aim of the simulation was
to allow the students to use their
knowledge in a practical manner by running
a business in a competitive environment
over a period of four weeks. One of the
participants, Griffin Dickinson, reports:
The Marketplace simulation was good as it
was a fun way to learn about business. It
was a very fast-paced market in which we
operated. I was familiar with the products
so it was more interesting to see what the
customer was demanding. As well as this,
there were other teams who were
competing against us in the same market,
which meant that there was a competitive
drive involved, especially in my class! One
particularly good aspect is that you gain
experience from having to make real
business decisions about everything
ranging from advertising to your brand
name. I liked the way that in the online
game time is compressed, giving the
players the sense of an accelerated
product lifecycle. This meant that everyone
felt the same pressure of competition and it
allowed you to immerse yourself in the role
of the management team for the company.
You have to start up and completely run your
own business as the CEO, managing brand
designs, pricing, advertising, distribution and
profitability. Since we took decisions as a
group, the exercise developed team skills
as well. To be successful and win you have
to get the right product for your target
market and accrue a large profit. At the end
of each quarter, there are graphs showing
your progress against the other A2 groups,
which helps increase the competitive edge.
There were some drawbacks to the
simulation: there were limited regions to
open in and only three types of product
to design, which did limit the ways teams
could differentiate themselves from the
competition. However, it was a good way
of putting the concepts and theories we
have studied all year into a real situation
and definitely taught us many of the skills
you need to succeed in an actual business
environment.
Spring
festival
On Thursday, 4th March, MPW hosted an
evening of celebrations to mark this years
Spring Festival for its Chinese, Vietnamese
and Thai students. The event began with a
short presentation by Rex Zhao and Hoang
Nguyen who explained the significance of
the Chinese and Vietnamese celebrations,
respectively, at this special time of the year.
The presentation was followed, firstly, by
a marvellous music performance by two
Chinese students and, secondly, by a song
about Tet (the Vietnamese festival of spring)
performed by all twelve of the colleges
Vietnamese students. The girls were all
dressed in their traditional costumes,
known as ao dai.
Later in the evening there was a competition
in which teams had to answer questions on
the meanings of the various symbols that
appear in East Asian cultures each spring.
Interestingly, the team entirely composed of
Asian students did not win the game!
All in all, it was a great night with lots of fun,
wonderful music, delicious food, and some
beautiful clothes. I hope those of you who
were there all had an enjoyable evening and
we look forward to welcoming you back to
our next Spring Festival celebration, together
with some who, we hope, will attend for the
first time having read this article!
Nina Nguyen
MPW Travel Fund
Report
Holland
Thanks to the MPW Travel Fund, I had the
opportunity to attend a fantastic Art History
course this summer in Holland organised
by The Courtauld Institute of Art. The
course focused on the work of 17th-
century Dutch artists including Rembrandt,
Rubens and Vermeer.
Day one took place at the Rijksmuseum in
Amsterdam, which houses paintings by
Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and de Hooch.
The course leader, Dr. Matthias Vollmer of
the Freie Universitt Berlin, met me and the
others in front of the gallery. I turned out to
be the youngest member of what proved to
be a lively and entertaining collection of
people! It was exciting to stand in front of
the very paintings to which Gerard
Hastings, my Art History teacher at MPW,
had introduced me: the originals were
stunning. Professor Vollmer explained their
symbolism and use of light and colour and
invited us to contribute to the discussions.
Day two took us to Rembrandts house, a
beautiful and typically Dutch building of the
early 1600s. It was moving to stand in the
studio where the paintings we had talked
about the day before had been painted,
and to walk through the rooms Rembrandt
had lived in. In the afternoon we went by
train to The Hague to the Mauritshuis
Museum. It was remarkable to stand in
front of Girl with a Pearl Earring by
Johannes Vermeer. Professor Vollmer
vividly explained the tension and enigma of
the painting. I was particularly struck by
Rembrandts last self-portraits and the
paintings by Jan Steen.
The Science of
Ice cream
Last term, as part of our GSCE Science
course, a group of MPW students went on
a trip with our teacher, Lillian Yong, to find
out how ice cream is made the Italian way
by visiting the local Odonnos parlour in
Bute Street. We were working on our GCSE
Science module: 'Food matters C3', so the
trip was a perfect opportunity to understand
better how scientific knowledge is put to
practical use in the making of food.
Oddono's (whose motto is Life's too short
to eat bad ice cream) serve Italian-style
soft ice cream made from fresh ingredients,
including fruit and nuts sourced from Italy.
Their ice cream is also sold in Selfridges
Food Hall, so as you can imagine, it's
traditional ltalian, high-quality gelato. After
you try the ice cream from here you realise
what you're missing when eating normal
English ice cream! As well as the usual
flavours, they make less-common ones like
cinnamon, honey and my favourite Bacio
(that literally means 'kiss'), a milk chocolate
and hazelnut mixture.
In order to make the ice cream perfect you
have to carefully follow the recipe through
The final day meant an early train journey to
a number of stages. The first involves
Rotterdam and a visit to the Boijmans
Museum. There were exquisite paintings by
Rembrandt and portraits and sketches by
mixing the ingredients: take sugar, dextrose
and glucose powder and mix with fresh
milk and fresh double cream. Then the ice
cream is pasteurised, just like other dairy
Rubens. Professor Vollmer pointed out how
foods such as cheese and the milk we put
Rubens focused on the wealth and status
of his sitters, while Rembrandt concentrated
on the integrity of their characters.
Looking back it is hard to believe I had
spent three full days visiting galleries and
talking about paintings. One comment the
professor made has stayed with me:
We talk to paintings and they talk
to us; we can and should have
discussions with works of art.
Jessye Bloomfield
on our cornflakes: you have to put the
mixture into the pasteuriser and bring it to
85 centigrade which kills all the bacteria.
Then the appropriate flavouring ingredients
are added. The next stage is churning: the
mixture is put into the batch freezer to
churn it. This incorporates air to give it a
light texture. Finally, the mixture is put into a
blast chiller to give it a blast of freezing cold
air at minus 40 degrees centigrade. This
finishes off the freezing process.
Life may be too short to eat bad ice
cream, but it certainly seemed that if you
want to make high quality food you need to
take your time and combine good
ingredients with applied science.
Munira Seisebayeva
Message from the
Principal
This has been an excellent Spring Term at
MPW. I have been delighted to see the
students approaching their studies and
extracurricular activities with so much
energy and enthusiasm. A visitor to the
College recently observed that the students
here seem full of energy and self-esteem,
sentiments I feel sure that the staff here
would share. We enjoyed meeting so many
parents at the A-level Options Evening and
at our seminar on Motivating Students, run
by John Meeske, our Head of Academic
Support. These events highlight how good
collaboration between College, parents and
students is crucial to academic success.
More than ever before, our extracurricular
programme is involving large sections of the
College. I am delighted that the number of
sporting opportunities is at an all-time high
and our trips and events programme is very
extensive, as is also reflected in this issue
of EMPOWER. The highlights include our
success as runners up in the London
Independent Schools Sixth-Form League
in rugby. This is a fantastic achievement
and I warmly congratulate the whole squad
and their coaches, Simon Horner and
James Barton. I was also delighted to have
the support of parents on the touchline at
some of the matches. Another memorable
event was the Spring Festival celebration
organised by our South East Asian
students who welcomed in the year of the
Tiger with an appropriate roar!
Our AS-level PSHEE programme has gone
from strength to strength. The various talks,
held at St Augustines Church, included
topics such as: Personal Health, The Law
and Thinking About the Future and the
Wider World.
It also becomes clear at this time of year
how many students have succeeded in
gaining university offers. We have a
fantastic set of offers for our students this
year, including many Oxbridge and Medical
School places and dozens of offers from
top-20 universities. The hard work now
continues for students in securing those
places by reaching the required grades. The
main job of work for staff and students alike
in this coming term is to engage fully in the
examinations process and get the best
possible grades. I believe there is no magic
solution to examination success. It is quite
simply about application, responding to the
advice of expert teachers and careful,
meticulous revision. I wish every student
good luck and good judgement in their
forthcoming examinations.
Matthew Judd
harassed politicians
The world today is ruled by
absorbed with getting into
turning out
office or
the other man
not much room is left for debating mismanaging the
great issues on their merits.
Politics
conference
Churchill once said that the world today
is ruled by harassed politicians absorbed
with getting into office or turning out the
other man, so that not much room is left
for debating great issues on their merits.
His words echo in todays world as loudly
as ever. However, in March MPWs A-Level
Politics students had an opportunity to
interact directly with politicians at a
conference held at the City Temple, in the
form of a town-hall meeting.
First up was the Commons Speaker, John
Bercow, outlining his belief that politicians
must renew, reform and reconnect. One
of our students, Mansour Al Tajir, asked
whether a stronger Parliament would hinder
efficient executive decisions. Bercow
disagreed: More often governments are
too hasty in ramming ill-considered bills
through Parliament. Government needs to
be constrained otherwise, like a racing-
car driver, the thrill is exhilarating, but might
be fatal.
The Conservative politician Alan Duncan
took a similar position: British politics is in
a dire state and
Parliament verges on
the dysfunctional. He
avoided mentioning
, so that criticised Labour for
the expenses scandal
but, unsurprisingly,
economy. He was
challenged by a student
on his elite educational background, but
countered by arguing that MPs need not be
socially typical, but should be like an
Olympic team the best. He also pointed
out that prominent MPs from other parties,
such as Michael Foot and Tony Benn, also
had Oxbridge educations.
Another Conservative MP, Damian Green,
followed. Although a less engaging
speaker, his defence of individual freedoms
and criticism of all-knowing databases and
the ID-cards project was relevant and
thoughtful. Lib Dem Lembit Opiks speech,
on the other hand, concentrated on
entertaining us but seemed at times to
ignore the issues.
Amongst the other speakers the standout
performer was the intensely controversial
George Galloway, a marmite politician:
loved by some, hated by others. He began
by mocking Bush and Blair to much
applause and then detailed the policies of
his party, Respect. I asked him what Britains
role in the Middle East and Asia should be.
He replied that no invasive war had ever
been won in Afghanistan, that peace could
only be achieved by negotiation and that
killing was only radicalising more Muslims
around the world.
Overall the outing was an enjoyable
experience, as the opportunity for students
to question so many prominent MPs in so
open a forum is rare.
Danyaal Khaliq